17. Dream
Dream
I dreamed of a storm.
Wind and ice and snow. So much snow. And heat. Impossibly, heat.
A contradiction, but anything was possible in a dream. I reminded myself of that and let go, surrendering to it, to the fiction my mind had conjured.
Fiction was safe, so I let myself feel all the impossible things—fear, dread, desperation, exhilaration—knowing I would wake in the dawn, unscathed from the storm surging around me.
None of it was real. Not the scream of wind. Not the cold bite of snow. Not the blinding surge of white.
And not that other thing.
The thing that lived in the storm, moving like a twisting shadow in the rush of falling snow, teasing in and out of the torrent, gliding closer to me.
I stood in the fury of wind and snow, holding a hand over my eyes, trying to shield them from the stinging pelt as I peered into the storm. Whatever was out there . . . it moved too quickly for me to track and identify.
I could not name it as it encroached, but it was big.
Dream or no, a wave of unease rippled through me.
Grabbing on to my courage, I called out, but my voice was lost in the howl of air.
I glimpsed prismatic black. Dark flashes as iridescent as the sheen of a crow’s wing amid the frenzy of white. Flickers of sleek skin. Not human. Something else. A predator.
I tried to track the body as it moved closer. So close. Too close. Fear cut through me like a knife. I turned and ran.
My legs pumped as I worked through great drifts of snow.
It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.
I looked over my shoulder, and that’s when I saw the eyes peering through the snow.
A roar cut through the din of the storm like a blast, flinging me back.
I sank like a blade in butter through the snow. Down, down, down I went, the snow surrounding me, swallowing me.
And above me, snow and wind and ice . . . and those eyes.
This dream visited me often, an unwanted guest, outstaying its welcome each time, every time. Always the wink of sleek skin through snow. Always prismatic eyes, deep and dark as coal.
Always the storm.
Always coming for me.